TSA’s $50M uniforms contract stirs ire on Hill

Members of Congress are decrying the Transportation Security Administration’s decision to sign a $50 million contract to buy uniforms just a week before sequestration took effect.

TSA defends the deal — noting that its old contract had expired, and saying that without a new one it couldn’t have continued buying uniforms for airport screeners. And the agency says $50 million is a ceiling, not the amount it intends to spend on uniforms in the next year.

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But the optics of such a big, badly timed contract are horrible, lawmakers said Wednesday.

“When we’re losing essential services and they’re closing down or threatening to close down all sorts of important government activities, to have them cut the deal on $50 million for uniforms is absolutely outrageous,” John Mica (R-Fla.) told POLITICO.

Mica, a former House Transportation chairman, is a frequent critic of TSA and now helms an Oversight panel with broad jurisdiction over government spending. He said he’s “working feverishly” on digging into TSA’s finances.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), another TSA critic, said in a statement that “I find it deeply disturbing that as [Homeland Security] Secretary [Janet] Napolitano is running around scaring people by saying she is going to have to furlough employees because of sequester, that she would also spend $50 million of taxpayer money on new uniforms. This is a classic failure in leadership.”

Republicans aren’t the only ones raising questions. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, disputed TSA’s assertion that the contract couldn’t have been handled differently.

Thompson said he has been looking into the department’s contracting as a whole and whether it could be done more efficiently. He said the uniform contract is “one of many” incidents that have raised eyebrows.

“Contracting as usual doesn’t necessarily say that it couldn’t have been done better,” Thompson said. “As you know, DHS as a whole has been criticized because of the management and purchasing that they do.”

The contract issue comes while the agency is still defending its move to allow small knives on planes — but not full-size toiletries like toothpaste or shampoo.